


Little Blue Square

by VenusTheMarvelTurtle



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Blood, Butchers, Complete, Creepy, Dark, Dubious Ethics, Ficlet, Gen, Mild Gore, One Shot, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Taboo, carnivores, questionable morals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:57:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6760441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusTheMarvelTurtle/pseuds/VenusTheMarvelTurtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is handing her the keys to the cruiser when she drops her wallet with one of those adorably dinky curses, but the laughter dies on his lips when he picks it up, goes to hand it to her, and sees it- that little blue square on the back, neatly checked in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Blue Square

**Author's Note:**

> A 'what if zootopia had a messed up version of the organ donor program' headcannon, because everyone wants to turn Nick into a soy-sage lover, but can lions really survive on crickets and trout?

Nick is handing her the keys to the cruiser when she drops her wallet with one of those adorably dinky curses, but the laughter dies on his lips when he picks it up, goes to hand it to her, and sees it- that little blue square on the back, neatly checked in.

The ink is purple and faded, slightly smudged, but the innocuous mark is still perfectly legible, perky and mocking in its simplicity. The sentence in front of it is clinical, cut and dry in the way that it cuts him to the quick, much more efficient than a gunshot or a hot knife through butter and organs.

_This mammal is a certified tissue donor._

When she notices the reason Nick isn't returning her license or responding to his name, the smile slides from Judy's muzzle, and a look of pure, unrestrained shame replaces it.

Nick tears his gaze away to stare at the keys in his still outstretched paw as though they've morphed into a deadly weapon, and he suddenly he realizes that they, in fact, are.

Because that short, blunt sentence says _tissue_. Not _organ_. If they were to get into a car accident, Nick would end up in the mourge, cold and useless but whole, undisturbed in his admittedly pathetic final resting place with no one to pay for a police burial for him.

He'd be torched, probably, after no one came to claim him. But Judy...

He's horrified. He's disgusted. But the worst part is, he knows he has no right to be.

It's something no one ever wants to talk about. The entire city- the entire SOCIETY, with its 90 per cent prey ratio, would rather pretend it didn't exist. And for the most part, they can. Predators, carnivores, they settle to keep the peace. Fish never gained sentience, chicken is a staple in every meat eating household, and in the rainforest district, certain types of fried bugs sold for twenty bucks a kabob to unsuspecting tourists. Nick himself had a healthy respect for soy paste and tofu-bean burgers.

But no one, realistically at least, expected a lion to survive on shrimp and chicken wings and dried meal worms ALL THE TIME. Because, as Big had so wisely pointed out, the animal would always remain.

Accidents happened when mammals starved. Those predators who fell down on their luck and couldn't pay their morgages certainly couldn't afford pricey creepy crawly alternatives.

So there had evolved a solution, one that mollified those that hungered, was cost efficient and easy on the pockets, and that allowed the most kind hearted of plumpest prey to be useful after their feet stopped twitching, while also saving space in cemeteries too.

Nick still remembers gripping tight to his mother's sweaty paw as they stood in line at the frigid, stained desk in the building with no name. She'd called it the 'packing place', but at twelve, he hadn't known what that meant. All he'd known was that while his limbs stretched an inch a day, in his stomach there had grown a snarling, vacant hole that no amount of chicken soup or clam chowder had been able to fill.

She didn't talk, his mother, only clutched the wrinkled card that came in the mail and changed colors every month in her claws and shook her head at his questions- why was it so cold, why is that tiger with his ribs sticking out drooling in the corner, what's that smell mom, it's really really good?

When they reached the front, she'd shown the card to a mangy, yellow eyed coyote behind the desk who, after scrutinizing it, jerked his chin over his shoulder and stepped aside, allowing them passage.

Nick remembers the feel of the plastic divider sliding through and over his fur as they entered a second space, this one with even less mammals in it, but every single one of them preds, and every single one of them looking like they'd rather be anywhere else, shoulders stooped low and eyes on their toes. The smell was intoxicating at that point.

He remembers the counter.

He remembers the color red most of all, bright and visceral behind the clear glass. Thick slabs of red and brown, beautifully marbled with rings of fat and gristle sitting in pale pink puddles of juice, piles of orange and red and purple unidentified _things_ that shimmered wetly and smelled like heaven and made his back teeth tingle and ache, knives on the black stone sitting sharp and gleaming as though _begging_ to be used.

His mother had made her order in a timid, strained voice, and Nick had watched in fascination as the wolverine behind the counter picked up one of those perfectly shining knives and hauled a huge hank of something muscular and heavy from behind the glass, straining and bulging against the twine coiled around it. The knife was swift and merciless, cutting and slicing and gouging, sending chunks and strips of still warm, wet flesh flying and falling in all directions, bloody gobbets pattering on the oily tile that made Nick's mouth water and the hole in his stomach _roar_.

Watching the wolverine at work was a thing of beauty. Nick hardly paid any heed to the crimson spattered trashcan at the surly mammal's elbow, and the tiny rabbit's foot just barely peeking over the top of the rim, or the horrid stench of rotten offal emanating from inside.

Dinner that night was pork blood sausage and broth made from marrow, and Nick ate every single bite. He licked his plate when he was finished, pleaded for more, and sobbed when it was all gone. He'd never tasted anything so delicious.

For three weeks, he couldn't look the sow in his history class in the eye, particularly as she mourned her uncle that had just been killed in a car crash. He kept remembering the rich, thick feel of grease and skin on his tongue, between his canines, wondering if the chub around her middle was as chewy as it looked. His first taste of meat had damnear driven him mad and given him a binge like addiction that he'd never totally shaken.

(No one at the precinct needed to know about the card that showed up in his mailbox every three weeks like clock work, least of all his fuzzy, long eared partner.)

Zootopia was a thriving city, full of prey as well as predators with their families of growing, sharp toothed babies, and the ZPD was far from a safe occupation. If a little bunny catches the ricochet of a .48 and the bullet in her leg ruptures the femoral artery before anything can be done, it's tragic, but it's not a total loss.

That leg is mangled. The rest of her, though, the rest of her is just fine. Unmarred. Uninjured. 

Plump. Fresh.

Tender. 

Wholesome. 

And she's not using her own flesh anymore, right? So why bury it? Why burn it? Why waste it? That would be the real crime.

Why not have that little box on the back of her license checked? It's just a precaution. A nice thing to do.

Everyone's got different tastes after all. Everyone's gotta indulge sometime. Sprouting savages need their proteins.

And if that little bunny's carnivorous neighbours get a hankering for something a little more substantial than scallops, then they can have her over for a meal one last time. 

If Nick dies, he'll end up either six feet under, or burned. But Judy?

When her bell tolls, the case and the knives and the counter will be waiting, and some little fox kit or cheetah cub or wolf pup will be having Zootopia's first Rabbit officer for dinner. 

Ha ha, Hopps Brand Steaks. 

_'You think I might eat you?'_

Hell, he might have, someday. It's still possible. Her box _is_ checked, after all.


End file.
